By Albert Thyrniang
Last Sunday was Teachers’ Day. Unfortunately, for the second year in a row, the usual colourful celebrations were missing. However, we need not suspend our reflections on the one of the noblest professions, teaching. The presentation might be in colloquial language, the sequence not orderly and the overall presentation negative but the Performance Grading Index (PGI) by the Union Education Ministry ranks Meghalaya among one of the worst performing states in the whole country. Teachers too cannot absolve themselves of the blame. My experience tells me of the following category of teachers:
Punctual and regular
Teachers of this category are there for sure. Names readily come to mind of teachers who arrive in school well before the school Assembly on a daily basis. They are in the campus to assist the school authorities to get students ready to stand in line for the traditional morning function. There are also examples of teachers who are regular beyond expectation. There was a teacher in Garo Hills, now retired, who would come to school, though literally shivering with malaria. In 2018 there was a teacher in West Karbi Anglong who was awarded for recording an exceptional 100% attendance.
While the above stories are unbelievable there are also those who also unpunctual and irregular teachers – teachers who reach the school always during or after the school assembly; teachers who make sure they exceed all the available leaves.
Excuse finders
This group of teachers rarely fulfil their ‘out of the classroom’ responsibilities, rarely take initiatives and are averse to change. They find excuses for everything. When it is their turn to give Assembly talk they absent themselves on one pretext or the other or they come to you just when it is about time for the Assembly to commence with an excuse, ‘today I have a bad cough.’ When they are told to conduct online classes they come up with unlimited reasons for their reluctance, like network connectivity, limited number of students who have smart phones and SIM card. When they are asked to conduct online competitions the same excuses are thrown at you. They find arguments like, ‘we have to begin somewhere, that even a 10 % success rate is good enough to begin with’ not compelling enough. They even refuse to see that online examinations, online applications are already in practice. Unless students are made aware and are taught the importance of the online world they will miss out on admissions and job opportunities. Employers have no consideration for those residing in areas with poor network connection.
Resistant to change
Linked to the last point are teachers who resist change. “The Only Constant in Life Is Change” says Heraclitus. The Greek philosopher who lived around 500 BCE also says, “You cannot jump into the same river twice.” By the time you come up of the water you jumped into, it has already flown down a few meters away. Teachers prefer to continue to record attendance manually on the register rather than via thumb impression or facial recognition for obvious reasons – they can no longer manipulate. Their time of arrival and departure will be recorded.
Teachers who are supposed to facilitate change resist the same. Proposals for change are opposed on the argument ‘things have been going this way for 20/30 years, why change now’? Not even the suggestion to ‘give it a try and reverse it to the old if the new is unsuccessful’ is met with their approval. While statuses in Whatsapp and profiles in Facebook are constantly updated, schools are run the same way for years together. In most government schools the classrooms have been the same for the last 40/50 years, only that the desks and benches, the windows and doors are broken and the floor is worn out. Forget about technological change like smart classrooms. These are out of the teachers’ control but they can alter their teaching methods. They can update their notes. They can teach differently. The saying, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results” is credited to Albert Einstein.
Unutilised training
Few teachers utilise their training. Take the simple example of those who have completed their B. Ed degree. They have learned to make lesson plans. But not many B. Ed holders make lesson-plans after joining a school. A few may do it for a few weeks or months into their job but soon the practice is abandoned never to be revisited. The same happens with using teaching aids in the classroom. It meets the same fate. The same happens with the lower level training. Training is mainly to obtain a degree and to secure a job. Once on the job the training remains largely unutilised.
Unprofessionals in the work of professionals
Teaching is a profession which means teachers are professionals. But a large section of the teaching community has not done any professional teaching courses. It is a case of unprofessionals doing the work of professionals. If it happens in the field of medicine it is illegal. If it happens in engineering it is unlawful. But it is not illegal in education. In two church-run high/higher secondary institutions which have been in existence for more than 25 years it was a shock to discover that in one of them there was no teacher with B. Ed degree and in the other there is only one staff with the degree. In the last 3/4 years most teachers completed the mandatory D.EL.Ed course but the utility and effectiveness is highly questionable.
Professionals also constantly update themselves. Among teachers hardly anyone updates himself or herself. It is observed that many a teacher grows lethargic with no new idea and zero creativity. They just move on. They are allowed to linger in the job because there is no challenge and no demand on performance. We are coming back to the point of doing things over and over again exactly the same way.
With the new National Education Policy (NEP) enabling students to learn new age subjects such as coding and computational thinking at the middle school level and can opt for subject courses, namely, arts, physical, and vocational education in secondary schools, one wonders whether teachers who have become sluggish can cope up with the demands.
The new NEP’s proposal to promote teachers based purely on merit rather than on seniority and vertical reward for teachers with high-performance to be promoted to work at a district or state level may do the trick to keep teachers on their toes.
Salary an eternal issue
Pay is always an issue. Every now and then we see and hear Ad-hoc, SSA and deficit school teachers hit the streets to demand for better pay. Private teachers bear their fate silently for they don’t have much of a choice. The other day there were letters to the editor to draw the government’s attention to the insecure future of retired deficit teachers and the underpaid and overworked teachers in lower classes. If deficit teachers face an uncertain future one can imagine the plight of private school teachers. The call for rationalisation of salary is a just demand but whether the government has the resources, is the question.
Permit me to stray a bit. We also recall a letter to this daily by a student of a premier college of the city. He identifies himself/herself as coming from a middle-class family but finds it difficult to clear the fees on time. If middle class families find it hard to pay the fees, it is easily inferred that the institution is out of bounds for the poor.
In his village the orphans that this writer personally knows are not in the deficit schools run by the Church. They are in other government aided schools that have much lesser fees. In Khasi-Jaintia Hills the Church runs many deficit schools. If the orphans and students from below poverty families are out of the Church’s deficit run institutions then it is quite a sad story.
The story is much worse in unaided educational institutions run by the Church. Only those who can afford to pay the fees take admission in such schools. The poor are not in schools run by the Church. The other day this writer visited a family two kms away from the mission school. Two HSSLC passed children were there. On enquiry they revealed they studied in a government school. When asked ‘why not in the mission school’, they regretfully revealed ‘our parents could not afford to put us in ‘your’ school’. The experience was quite devastating leaving the ‘culprit’ grasping for questions with no answers.
The balance between a reasonable fee and a good pay for teachers is a delicate task. The Church can charge high fees to pay teachers well. But in doing so the poor are left out. Even with the present scale the poorest are out of the Church’s educational system. They are denied a good education, thereby perpetuating their condition. It is a tough balancing act. Teachers, of course, have every right to feel they are paid poorly.
This reflection does not paint all teachers with the same brush. You could say it is only one side of the story.
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